On 2012-01-26, at 9:16 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> What I find surprising, though, is the absence of any
> serious labor action in China and other countries comparable to those
> in the turn of the century Europe. No unions, no direct action, no
> threat of a socialist revolution. This, btw, shows the poverty of
> the class-centered analysis of social behavior, that analysis would
> predict the opposite - massive labor organizing and looming
> revolution. The fact that none of this seems to be happening
> indicates that something else than the class as defined by the
> relations to the means of production is the driving force of social
> behavior in China and elsewhere.
There is no threat of a socialist revolution in China, but there is widespread and growing labour unrest.
China is beginning to experience labour shortages, which explains the increasing number of strikes and other job actions. The fact that the state declares itself to be socialist and still controls the commanding heights of the economy (state firms, though, having been transformed into profit-seeking enterprises) militates against workers organizing under the banner of "socialism". They more vaguely aspire to "democracy", although their demands still much resemble the programmes advanced by the social democratic parties in the West last century.
Also, though it was a more egalitarian society, most Chinese workers would probably identify socialism with the lower level of economic development in Maoist China, and would not be looking not to go back to it, but to graft onto China's rapidly modernizing society the same trade union and other democratic rights won by Western workers generations ago. The Chinese workers' consciousness, it seems to me, resembles that of workers in the fSU and Eastern Europe, where, at best, there is some nostalgia for the collective ethos and social safety net of the old order but no desire to return to it or to embrace it as a model.
There is also considerable peasant unrest in the villages, with farmers resisting or demanding greater compensation for land expropriated for private and public development.
These worker and peasant struggles are class struggles. They are not revolutionary class struggles, to be sure, and they are aimed as much against state authorities as against the rapidly expanding capitalist class which has been restored in China, but the overwhelming majority of strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins and other forms of class struggle aim at reform of the existing system, and only carry within them the seeds of social revolution.
You will have to keep looking, dear Wojtek, for more evidence that class is no longer the driving force of social behaviour in China and elsewhere.
Below, some random headlines from the Financial Times about recent worker unrest. Blogs and other publications devoted to China provide more extensive coverage, if you want to further research this subject.
* * *
November 23, 2011 China labour unrest flares as orders fall
November 18, 2011 Chinese workers protest against wage cuts
October 25, 2011 China labour costs soar as wages rise 22%
November 8, 2011 3:27 pm China factories eye cheaper labour overseas